On November 19, the high school hosted an independently run TED event called TEDxFarmingtonHighSchool (TEDx) in the auditorium. The event was hosted by seniors Luke Steele, Jenny Chen, Nivi Nath, Navva Sedigh, John Swanson, Emma Sherrill, Julia Borgida and Chris Ware.

This event was something that Steele was interested in hosting since last December. Steele met with Principal Bill Silva for approval, which allowed the event to be hosted at the high school.

“I have always loved TED talks, and I wanted to share them with the school and I thought this would be a good opportunity to do that,” Steele said.

The TEDx event included live speakers and pre-recorded TED talks that related to the theme. The theme was centered around the topic “What Now?” and students and teachers were invited to speak at this event.

“We spoke with a lot of people who we thought might have something interesting to say, and we ended up having two people come from outside of Farmington. It was really interesting to see other people from outside the community who were interested and willing to come to Farmington to talk about their own experiences,” Steele said.

The event had three live speakers including junior Shreyas Parab from Philadelphia, fourth grader Curran Dee from Glastonbury and senior Smrithi Raman from the high school.

Parab started his own company called My Novel Tie during his freshman year of high school. In addition to growing his company, he travels around the world to promote his company and speak about his successes and failures.

Dee, from Glastonbury, Connecticut, gave a presentation focused on connecting students together in unconnected classrooms. He established a program called Digital Citizenship for Kids by Kids which is being used as a student ambassador program.

Raman spoke about her own experiences abroad that allowed her to grow as a member in society. Her primary focus was about her trip to Bangalore, India and her experience working with children with a language barrier, as she worked to teach the children English, focusing on empowering them through education.

“I’d love to go back [to India] and work at the school for an extended period of time,” she said.

Overall, this event brought different perspectives of what one can accomplish while still young.

According to Nath, the information brought to the event by the speakers and the recorded talks were meant to be an inspiration that everyone can see what they have the potential to do.

“My favorite part was the intellectual diversity that the presenters and pre-recorded talks brought. I hope that this event will have the ability to take place again in the future,” Nath said.